The Lodge of Whispering Pines stands among the trees near an entrance to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness, at the end of a hilly and winding road, 20 miles north of Ely. 

It has what most other resorts in northern Minnesota offer: a great view of the outdoors, cute cabins, campsites and the glimpse of a quieter life. But it’s the sun shining brightly on these cold winter days that sets the lodge apart. 

In fact, it wouldn’t be open without it. 

After sitting dormant during the winter for the past decade, strained by high energy costs, the Lodge of Whispering Pines is up and running on the strength of a solar project that largely powers its dozen cabins. 

Owner Daniel Houle, who bought the lodge in 2022, noticed how the winter climate was taxing the business. The cost of heating was too high to justify it being open, so for the previous ten years, the lodge remained closed in winter.

“Because it’s been a seasonal resort, we haven’t had anybody in the spring or the fall,” said Denise Myers, who lives on-site with Houle and helps operate the lodge. “I know that they did some hunting and some winter activities for a while, but I think it was just too expensive to keep up because they had to run the generator.” 

Solar power will also help the resort save money during the peak season because its electricity comes from an on-site solar field. 

Before the solar project was implemented, a diesel generator ran 24/7 to create electricity from May through October. The cost of diesel was around $4 a gallon — a “bad deal,” as Houle put it — coming out to roughly $2,800 a month. Now, almost all of the electricity comes from solar panels. 

“I could have stayed and paid 20-grand a year, 25-grand a year in diesel fuel,” he said. “But this way, we’ve got clean energy. It works. It’s dependable. And the big winner is I get to be open in the winter, without having to have a million customers come through.” 

Financial struggle for resorts 

Houle said electricity has always been a financial struggle for remote resorts like his. He said lot values seem to be going up, with land values outpacing cash flow values. But tourism is strong in the state. 

“(We’re) assured to move forward into the next decade because we now have ample power to keep our property running and it’s affordable,” Houle said.

He got the solar project up and running with the help of funding from the Minnesota Department of Commerce’s State Competitiveness Fund (SCF) Matching Funds Program, along with a federal USDA REAP grant. 

The state program was funded by the Legislature in 2023. Pete Wyckoff, the deputy commissioner of energy resources at the Department of Commerce, said one of the main goals of the matching program is for Minnesotans to be incentivized to tap into federal dollars. 

“There has been a sort of unprecedented level of opportunity for nationwide federal aid to come in the form of grants and loans and tax credits to help clean energy transition and climate projects,” he said. “One of our goals is just to make sure that Minnesota gets its fair share of the pie. We have been seeing this as a way to help encourage more of that federal money to come back to Minnesota.”

From 2022-2026, an estimated $2.21 million has been and will be awarded to Minnesota organizations through federal infrastructure funds. There are still more federal grants available, too. 

The projects vary in size. Wyckoff said projects like the one at the Lodge Of Whispering Pines, for example, cost the state a little over $100,000 while another project in the program will cost as much as $10 million.  

Future rounds for the SCF Matching Funds will open throughout 2025. The state has offered some technical assistance, too, to assist with things like grant writing, for example. Lodge of Whispering Pines received separate help with grant writing from Bonnie Zupec, a friend of Houle’s who said the application process involved having a clear idea of the project and planning out various elements. 

“Whispering Pines is a project we’re really excited about. I think it’s a great example of how Minnesota businesses can pair funding that’s available from the state of Minnesota with available funding at the federal level,” said Lori Brown, the program director for the State Competitiveness Fund. 

The total amount allocated to the program is $100 million. So far, the state fund has reserved about $17 million from SCF for projects that have received approval for federal awards, associated with just less than $61 million in complimentary federal funds.

The entire project in Ely cost around $180,000. It was really because of those grants, both state and federal, that Houle was able to do this. 

“Economics drives a lot of buses,” he said. “Really, without the grants, I don’t know how many more guys will jump into it. For us out here, it was different, because we’re off grid, so we don’t have electric.”

And the Lodge of Whispering Pines is going to save a lot of money and remain open because of it. 

It has a diesel generator as a backup, but Houle and Myers haven’t used it nearly as much as they used to. They’ve reduced their diesel use by roughly 80%, from 25 gallons of diesel a day to around 5 gallons a day, Houle estimated. They can’t sell the energy back, so they store their batteries for those days when they get less sun. Their system has a storage volume of 143 kilowatts. 

They’ve got 72 panels that bring in energy that can be stored in batteries. The total solar capacity of their panel operation is 38 kilowatts per hour and the batteries have a total storage capacity of 140 kilowatts. 

“We are a microgrid. We are our own power company,” Houle said. 

A storied lodge looks forward

Lodge Of Whispering Pines features 12 cabins that have a woodsy feel and campsites for a more nature-centered experience. Big Lake sits right next to the resort, a place where visitors can try winter activities like snowshoeing, or in the summer take up their wilderness day trips. 

The lodge’s previous owners operated it for nearly 30 years. Its original owners, Marie Sarkipeto Ericson and Roland Ericson, built the lodge in the 1920s and opened it in 1936. 

Myers and Houle want to put Sarkipeto Ericson front and center. She was one of the first female guides in the Superior National Forest. They want to continue her work and help teach people about the outdoors. 

“She’s like our patron saint,” Houle said. 

“Why does she not get a name for stuff?” Myers said. “We’re going to put her name in it.”

So far this season, one family stayed over Christmas time. In the coming weeks, the lodge will host college students taking a wilderness course at Minnesota North College-Vermilion. 

“We’re hoping to get a lot of the youth across the state of Minnesota to come up and experience winter,” Houle said. 

The resort has previously been an outfitter for the boundary waters and will continue to be so. Guests can sleep there before heading into the canoe area, and Myers and Houle feel they can finally sleep at night. 

“Before, you (were) always thinking the generator is going to stop in the middle of the night, and when you have 70 guests here and the generator stops because of mechanical things,” House said. “The dependability of this, just in the last couple of weeks, I think I’m not as stressed because it’s dependable. We have stored power. It kind of can’t go wrong.”

While there have been some skeptics, Myers thinks this will be a leader in a new movement. 

“I want to preserve all this for …  (the) inheritance of my grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren. There needs to be places they can come outside and play and live,” Myers said. “For us to do this and look at how little gas we’re putting in, and the idea of maybe getting other people out to enjoy this so they want to preserve it, too. I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. It feels like the best reward I’ve ever had working here, being a part of this.”

Ava Kian

Ava Kian is MinnPost’s Greater Minnesota reporter. Follow her on Twitter @kian_ava or email her at [email protected].

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